Beginning yoga practitioners are often advised to build poses from the ground up when attempting to perform a wide variety of yoga postures. Yoga poses are often classified in terms of which parts of the body are contacting the floor while the pose is being performed. According to one such classification scheme, yoga poses are categorized as Standing Poses (both feet contacting the floor), Balancing Poses (one foot contacting the floor), Arm Balancing Poses (at least one hand contacting the floor), Sitting Poses (the sitting bones contacting the floor), etc. For yoga practitioners, the positioning of the body parts contacting the floor is an important initial consideration when learning to correctly assume the various yoga postures. Once this foundation for the pose is properly engaged, the positioning of body parts which do not contact the floor can be accomplished in order to complete the intended pose. Learning to set up this foundation of proper positioning of floor-contacting body parts may aid in reducing the risk of injury and increasing the benefits of yoga practice.
The process of setting up foundations of floor-contacting body parts for a yoga pose can be accomplished in several ways. The yoga practitioner can simply attempt to mimic a pose demonstrated by a live person, or an image of a person, often with adjustments subsequently made either based on the advice of an instructor or the practitioner's own knowledge. Additionally, the yoga practitioner can make use of visual alignment references to assist in the optimal orientation and spacing of the body parts that contact the floor. Visual alignment references are generally helpful to yoga practitioners as they learn to coordinate the various parts of the body to perform poses. Such references might include fixed aspects of the room in which the practice is taking place, such as floorboards, or yoga mats, which are commonly employed during yoga practice.
Prior art yoga mats, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,387,013 and 7,108,635, provide visual alignment references printed on the mat. The alignment references typically consist of grids of perpendicular lines or regular arrays of angled and straight lines. Such alignment mats can be used by a knowledgeable practitioner to assist in both the building of the foundation of a yoga pose and the subsequent alignment of other non-contacting body parts.
Yoga alignment mats appear abstract and are not intuitively related to any particular pose foundations. Such mats are not optimal for assisting practitioners to set a foundation for many yoga poses, especially for beginning yoga students, younger students, special-needs students, and students with certain learning styles. Therefore, a need exists for instructional yoga mats and materials that are designed to facilitate proper positioning for yoga poses in a less abstract, more intuitive manner.